Exclusion

Exclusion still exists in my family.  The details are not important; however, what is noteworthy is that some form of estrangement, exclusion, ostracism, or rejection continues to make the rounds. 

The sad part of the exclusion is that it is such a big part of the fabric of our family that it is accepted as a given - even while silently watching a family member in pain.(see: When Healthy Looks Crazy).

The excluded individual must learn to navigate the pain of rejection on their own.  That is where self-care must come in.  I must keep good boundaries so I don't put myself in situations where I will be/feel excluded.  Unfortunately, watching history repeat itself in the younger family generation is painful. My family seems to believe that the victim of exclusion "should not let it bother them" and continue to put themselves in harms way. Unfortunately, humans are not wired to sustain rejection.

Studies show that experiencing a rejection activates the same part of the brain as when we experience physical pain.   The same research also demonstrates that rejection mimics physical pain so much so that taking Tylenol eases the pain associated with rejection.  Psychologists believe this is true because human evolution has wired our brains to link our survival to our dependance on our inclusion in the tribe.

According to Psychology Today,  Rejection does not respond to reason. Participants were put through an experiment in which they were rejected by strangers. The experiment was rigged—the "strangers" were confederates of the researchers. Surprisingly, though, even being told that the "strangers" who had "rejected" them did not actually reject them did little to ease the emotional pain participants felt. Even being told that the strangers belonged to a group they despised such as the KKK did little to soothe people's hurt feelings. Guy Winch, Ph.D. "10 Surprising Facts About Rejection." The Squeaky Wheel. PsychologyToday.com. 3 July 2013. Web. 7 Sept. 2014.

You can see the whole article here:  10 Surprising Facts About Rejection

Bottom line, our well-being always comes back to boundaries.  As adults the individual alone is responsible for their own well-being.

Did That Just Happen?

I can't count the number of times I found myself on the receiving end of some sort of physical or emotional violence only to have my mother (or other family members) "pretend" nothing happened.

As a child, I sometimes questioned my sanity: Did that just happen?

As a young adult, the "pretending" made me angry.

As both a child and a young adult, I used to walk on eggshells around my mother. I never knew when she would unleash a rampage: cursing, yelling, belittling, blaming, etc. Then, the next time I'd see her she'd greet me with a big smile and the words, "Hi honey!" like nothing ever happened. It was crazy-making stuff!

I know I'm not alone in this experience. A common complaint I hear from other adult abuse survivors who are trying to maintain or re-establish contact with a family member is that of contending with a tirade over the phone, by e-mail, or in person only to have their family member act as if nothing happened the next time around.

While it is true that "pretending" can be rooted in some sort of sociopathy (no conscious), I don't think that is always the case. I believe that many abusers have a conscious but don't regard their behavior as abusive.

I read something once that said that human beings can't bear the thought that we have done something horrible, because if we did, we wouldn't be able to live with ourselves. Our tortured conscious requires us to take some sort of action to resolve our inner turmoil. We have a couple of choices:

A) We can help the other individual by repairing the damage we've done. This also helps us by easing our conscious. However, many people don't have the strength, courage, awareness, or emotional capability to repair the damage; so, they choose plan B.

B) We can ease our conscious by convincing ourselves that what we did wasn't so bad (or was justified) and then banish it from our mind like it didn't happen.

In other words, when it comes to abuse's and someone "pretends," it didn't happen, there isn't anything we can do to "make" them acknowledge the offenses. If they can't "repair" it - they have to "ignore" it.

My mother definitely has a conscious. For years, I tried to plead to her conscious to do the "right" thing. To me, reparation seemed like an easy thing to do - acknowledge, apologize, don't do it again . It took a great deal of time for me to wrap my head around the concept that no amount of explaining or pleading would result in acknowledgment. She didn't know how to "repair" the damage (or change her behavior), so her conscious wouldn't allow her to accept that she did something horrible.

Sixteen years ago, amidst continued family violence, the less healed me wasn't able to safe-guard my own well being, or that of my children. At the time, my only choice was estrangement. For some people, persistent physical and emotional violence continues to prohibit any safe contact. However, in my case, time changed some of the dynamics in my family. And, our fourteen years apart afforded me enough healing (and validation from others), that I was able to heal my past trauma without my mothers acknowledgment of the "specifics." I also learned to keep myself out of harms way in the present by setting and maintaining clear, respectful boundaries.

Thus far, the "pretending" issue hasn't come up again, but if it does, I know there is nothing I can do except safe-guard my own well-being.

Facebook and Estrangement

I often hear from people who have had a bad expeirence when they have either tried to contact, or have been contacted by an estranged family member through facebook, and then they wrestle with what to do.

The advent of many social networking sites has created a dilemma for many estranged, partially estranged, and newly reconciled family members. A common senario:

While perusing facebook, you stumble upon your estranged parent, child, or sibling. Your heart begins to race and your emotions stir like the waves of an ocean being whipped by conflicting winds. What to do? Curiosity get the better of you. Do I send a friends request? Or, not?

Conversely

You receive a notification that your estranged parent, child, or sibling has sent you a friends request. After the initial shock, your mind goes into overdrive. You may be very wary and not open to reconciliation. Contact through a social networking site causes you to feel intruded upon, stalked, angry, or fearful. The simple solution is to deny the request.

At best, you may find yourself in an awkward position. Even if you are open to reconciliation, granting unrestricted access to your personal life hardly seems wise.

I know people who have begrudgingly granted the request, only to find it necessary to later "block" the family member.

Therein lies the dilemma, if you are open to attempting reconciliation, how do you safe-guard this boundary, deny the request, but still convey an openness to explore a new relationship?

Reconciliation is best attempted in baby-steps; allowing for exercising appropriate boundaries while re-building trust and redefining the relationship and level of contact. The chances for success are greater when proceeding slowly. It is very difficult to pull back when we move too fast.

As tempting as it may seem, in my humble opinion, social networking sites are not the appropriate venue to connect with estranged, or newly reconciled family members. This also appears to be the consensus with many of my counterparts.

Establishing contact through a social networking site is risky business that often results in a lose-lose situation. The person who attempts contact often feels hurt, angry, and rejected, while the one who is contacted can view the intrusion as a boundary violation.

Fortunately, my family members re-established contact privately and to this day we are not social networking "friends." This enabled me to safe-guard my boundaries and explore our relationships at my own pace. If one of my family members had sent me a "friends" request to re-establish contact, I would have felt comfortable exercising a boundary in this area by saying, "I am interested in re-establishing contact through e-mail, and by telephone; however, facebook is not a comfortable arena for me to work at rebuilding a relationship with you."

Healthy vs. Unhealthy Relationships

A reader recently asked me if I would share some qualities that I came to understand were "red-flags" for unhealthy relationships vs. qualities of healthy relationships.

Wow! Tough question.

For many years, it was difficult for me to discern what was and was not healthy for me. Even after considerable healing there were many times that I felt "triggered" even if the other person was behaving in a healthy manner. For example, if another person held a matriarchal role in my life, or other such circumstances that triggered old unsafe childhood feelings, I couldn't differentiate between whether my present situation was unsafe, or I was experiencing old unhealed wounds.

Conversely, sometimes someone was behaving in a manner that was injurious to me and I failed to recognize the behavior because I was still wired to treat myself the way my mother treated me. I argued and "engaged" rather than protecting myself.

Today, I believe that I am responsible to safeguard my own well-being. So, some of my red flags are about me.

I'm sure there are many relationship/friendship "red-flags," however, these are the warning signs that are most pertinent to me:

1. Boundary Issues: Do they maintain their own healthy boundaries? Do they respect boundaries in others? Do they have enmeshment issues? It has only been the last few years that I've learned to consistently maintain clear, respectful, boundaries. Everyone needs to take responsibilities for their own boundaries; yet, a red flag for me, is if I need to spend an inordinate amount of time guarding those boundaries.

2. Blaming: Someone who takes no personal responsibility for his or her own actions or problems, but rather blames me or others.

3. Unrealistic Expectations: Expects me to meet all of his or her needs, and/or tries to move the relationship along too quickly.

4. Dishonesty, Betrayal: Because I was betrayed in my most basic relationships, it took me years to realize that I actually betrayed myself when I accepted betrayal as a part of my relationships.

5. Lack of Compassion, empathy, or inability to connect with others: I have to be very careful with this one. I grew up without any compassion or empathy. As an adult, I needed to learn a healthy balance between 1) learning to provide my own self-compassion, rather than a dependence on others to solely meet this need, and 2) recognizing when someone lacks empathy, compassion, or connectedness.

6. Critical, Demeaning, or disrespectful: If I don't recognize these qualities right away, they can slowly chip away at my self-esteem.

7. Controlling, Bossy, Demanding: Big red flag!

8. Poor conflict resolution skills.

9. Poor self-esteem: Boastful; needs his or her ego fed at the expense of others and/or places his or her needs above everyone else.

10. Crazy-making, ceaseless arguments. This is two-fold for me. It is a red flag about the other person if they need to be "right"all the time (i.e. facts or circumstances). Although feelings have no right or wrong, it is also a red flag about me if I find myself engaging in ceaseless arguments looking for understanding about my feelings. It took me a long time to learn not to engage, but rather stand confidently in my own experience.

Healthy qualities would be the opposite:

1. Maintains his or her own boundaries; respects boundaries in others.
2. Accepts responsibility for his or her own problems and actions.
3. Able to meet his or her own needs as well as share in each others lives.
4. Honest and open.
5. Displays an appropriate degree of compassion, empathy, and understanding.
6. Loving, respectful, dignified, focus's on positives rather than negatives
7. Mutual problem solving
8. Good, calm, listening and communication skills
9. Good self esteem: Self-respectful, humble, and is respectful of others needs.
10. Places relationships ahead of need to be right, and/or can stand confidently in own experience.

Setting Clear, Respectful, Boundaries

Boundary issues are common in dysfunctional family systems. I have wrestled with boundaries most of my life. As some of my prior posts suggest, I wasn’t able to set and maintain clear, respectful boundaries until I learned to love myself.

I needed to recognize that not only did I have a right to my feelings – it was my duty to take responsibility for my own well-being. After a lifetime of treating myself the same way my mother treated me, I experienced a fundamental shift. I finally realized that I truly deserved the dignity I had always only desired. At that point, I began caring for myself with love, compassion and self-respect.

It was easy to set boundaries when a relationship wasn’t very important to me. However, when a relationship was central to my life – I had a hard time. The anxiety I experienced when setting personal boundaries came from my fear of losing relationships. In order to overcome this worry, I had to understand that I have no control over the behavior of others, and that I needed to become more invested in my own worth than I was in the outcome.

Before exercising appropriate boundaries, I had to clearly state my own needs. In order to do this, I must A.) Identify the behavior that feels inappropriate or injurious to me. B.) Express my feelings. And, C.) Clearly state my needs.

For example: A.) When you shout at me…

B.) I feel scared…

C.) I need for you to lower your voice.

When I began stating my needs clearly (the less said the better), others usually honored the space I created for myself. As I became clearer about respectfully stating my needs in relationships, I found that quite often, the relationship became stronger.

Other times, people have responded negatively to my needs. At that point, it is necessary to actually set a boundary. That is where I used to get into trouble. If the other person argued, I usually engaged in the argument and let them trample my boundaries. I have learned to set my boundaries by saying: “If you continue to shout, I will ask you to leave” (or – “I will leave” – depending on the circumstances).

The next step is to maintain the boundary by actually leaving (or asking them to leave), and maintaining this boundary in the future.

Sometimes, setting and maintaining appropriate boundaries can result in loss. Yet, for me, the pain of loss eventually gives way to the power of living a life of integrity.

Answering Questions About Estranged Family Members

Answering simple questions about our families can by quite uncomfortable. Through trial and error, I have learned that the less said - the better.

Estrangement is an unnatural loss. When a loved one dies, others acknowledge the loss with tenderness and compassion. But, when a parent and child become estranged, bystanders usually don't understand the dynamics of the separation. They often assume that the adult child is responsible for his or her own loss.

Sometimes adult survivors of childhood abuse do make the painful decision to estrange from a family member. We may find that even after placing clear and respectful boundaries, we are still in jeopardy of physical and/or emotional violence.

Other times, family members can exile the individual who speaks the truth about the violence in the family.

Regardless of the painful circumstances that lead to family cut-offs, dealing with the embarrassment of exile can prove to be a challenge. People are often judgmental towards those who don't have a relationship with a family member.

Nonetheless, I find that when strangers or acquaintances inquire about family members, it is usually like the grocery checker asking, "How are you today?"

The question is really just about making conversation. Consequently, I usually answer as I do in the grocery store, "Good." Then I change the subject.

Sometimes, an acquaintance has heard about my estrangement, and may ask, "Why can't you get along with your family? They seem nice to me!"

It took a great deal of heartache and practice for me to learn to say, "What happened between my family and me is between my family and me. I don't wish to discuss it."

I've also run into old family friends who ask innocent questions and I don't know the answers such as, "How can I get in touch with your mother."

In these cases, I usually say, "I'm estranged from my mother and I prefer not to talk about it."

Developing a circle of supportive confidants is very important. My friends and therapist helped me move past my defensiveness, and to stand confidently in my decision to protect myself from abuse. Handling inquires about my family became an exercise in honoring my own boundaries. Eventually, my embarrassment faded as my confidence grew.

Wishing everyone peace, love, and safety.